Exhibitions

The Kovács Gábor Collection covers art from the beginning of the 18th century to the 1950s. The main direction of the fine art material is represented by the masterpieces of naturalistic landscape painting expressing the classical ideal of beauty, which are harmoniously connected to the works displaying other themes.

Now the collection is presented in Ankara with a special selection that guides the visitor through one of the most exciting centuries in the history of Hungarian painting. The 19th century is the era of the consummation of becoming a nation in Hungary, which includes the civilizing aspirations of the reform era, the events of the 1848 revolution and war of independence, then the period of national resistance against Austrian oppression, and finally the decades of dynamic development following the compromise with the Habsburg Monarchy. Parallel to the political, economic and social changes, culture, including fine arts, is experiencing its heyday again. By the end of the century, the basic conditions for artist training and art trade were gradually created, and the majority of artists returned home after completing their studies abroad and strived for an independent existence at home, thereby raising Hungarian art to European standards.

The Studio of Tibor Csernus

On the one hand, the exhibition provides an insight into the collection of the Kovács Gábor Art Foundation, and on the other hand, it describes the arc of thought that, due to the colorfulness of the collection, enables a specific reading of contemporary Hungarian art.

Tibor Csernus's painting in the 1980s turned to the old masters, providing a contemporary interpretation of their technique. In its theme, it harks back to prefigures, but freely selects and arranges characters from mythological and biblical stories into one scene. The painter did not moralize, the subject served only as a way to stage human figures and show their relationships. His nudes and study drawings are not simple prefigures, but often visual outgrowths of an idea from various aspects. Seemingly unfinished details, improved surfaces, impatient-looking paint pulls are placed one above the other on the canvas, and their expressiveness suggests haste, but in fact they are the result of ever slower, more thoroughly matured work.

Boldi's sculpture is similarly naturalistic, focusing on man and the human body. He brings all this into dialogue with the closed forms of marble or bronze castings with a special patina . The clear modern language of humanity, built on classical sculptural traditions and reduced to basic forms, makes his creative way of thinking akin to the painting of Csernus. In Boldi's case, the question of morality already appears, but his nudes are presented as symbols, and thus problems can be explored literally through the series of works. The sculptor approaches the human body with restraint, building on its meaning-bearing qualities rather than its staged, expressive character.

The permissive softness of the paint contrasts with the inexorable rigidity of the stone. The intersection of the form language of the two artists, which at first seems opposite, can be found in the transformation of the artistic qualities formulated and researched in them into images and figures. 

In the spring of 2023, the Ferenczy Museum Center of Szentedre will present an oeuvre exhibition entitled THE COLLECTION (1900-2022). Szentendre, as one of the main centres of Hungarian modern art, has shaped artistic trends for decades, while also maintaining a dialogue with the national and international art scene. The primary focus of FMC’s art collection is Hungarian contemporary fine and applied art, with particular emphasis on the 20th and 21st centuries. In this category, it is one of the largest and most prominent art collections in Hungary.

The exhibition will showcase outstanding works of art that have not been displayed for a long time, as well as a selection of new acquisitions. Works will also be featured by some of today’s most notable contemporary artists, including Tamás Kaszás and Zoltán Szentirmai, as well as such prominent figures of the 20th-century Szentendre art scene as Jenő Barcsay, Endre Bálint, Béla Czóbel, Pál Deim, members of the Ferenczy dynasty (Károly, Noémi and Béni), Dezső Korniss, János Kmetty and Lajos Vajda. There is a special section where art from members of Szentendre’s Lajos Vajda Studio will be on view.

Newspaper articles and videos, as well as further reading and interesting facts accessible by QR codes, help visitors delve deeper into the different periods. The texts for the videos were written by István Kemény, winner of the Attila József Literary Prize.

The exhibition will simultaneously present paintings, sculptures, installations and video works, while new conceptual spaces will also be created by drawing surprising connections between certain works. Our aim is to move away from the traditional, art historical theme- and “ism”-based classification typically employed by museums, offering instead a wealth of new discoveries and unexpected connections.

By periodically rearranging the exhibition, we seek to reflect not only the depth and richness of the Museum’s collection, but also an approach that allows for discovering and connecting the histories of visual art, local history, literature, ethnography and archaeology in myriad ways. To this end, in collaboration with our Museum Education Department, our aim is to also involve the younger generations and encourage them to play an active role.